


Ferns

by EvieBaby



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Post-Breaking Dawn, Sex Games, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-24 19:13:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30077028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvieBaby/pseuds/EvieBaby
Summary: Edward is dismayed to discover that prior to her transformation, Bella's active imagination had been brimming with all kinds of scenarios starring her vampire boyfriend. And now that she can share her thoughts, the images are in his head too. Well, Edward rationalizes, a good husband is open to anything that will make his wife happy. Even role-play.
Relationships: Edward Cullen/Bella Swan
Comments: 14
Kudos: 26





	1. Meadow

**Author's Note:**

> ****Disclaimer:** The characters and situations of the _Twilight Saga_ depicted in this story are the legal property of Stephenie Meyer, Summit Entertainment, and Little, Brown & Company, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is being made.

She made the first move.

Not in the least bit surprising—that was often the case when it came to sex. Maybe because I had devoted so many minutes of my long, long years, before her and after her, to self-control. Sexual thoughts were to be pushed aside, denied, regulated. The last thing I wanted was to hurt her, or do something I would regret. It was hard to just shut that off, to unlearn it. Bella would press her body into mine, or whisper in my ear that she wanted me, and I had to remind myself that it was okay. There was no danger to her. Sometimes it felt like I was trying to deprogram myself. 

It was easy in the bedroom, or really any other room of the little house Esme had renovated for us. The cottage was clean of memories of a time before. In our bedroom, we were and had always been married; she was and had always been a vampire. It was our separate world. 

We’d had sex elsewhere too. So much, in fact, that Emmett was starting to think we were challenging his record. But she usually initiated it, and I had to overcome that initial hitch in my movement, the alarm bells, the anxiety. For a fraction of a second, I was the old Edward who needed to be wound with tight resolve at all times for her safety. But I wouldn’t show it. I couldn’t. Bella would misconstrue the reason, and she should never feel unwanted. 

I was getting better at mastering that hesitation. At least, I thought I was. 

She sighed contentedly beside me. “I’ve missed this place.”

I couldn’t help the grin. I felt the same. It was nice to be back in our meadow. “It’s been too long,” I agreed.

We were lying side by side under the overcast sky, tall grass overgrown around us, spring flowers in bloom. I watched a bumblebee lumber through the air above me as I turned my head to look at her. The fingers of my left hand and her right were intertwined and had been for the last hour. Her periwinkle blouse was spattered with blood from our hunt, and her jeans had a tear near the ankle. She was self-conscious that she couldn’t hunt as cleanly as I did yet, and I was careful not to tease her about it. 

“We’ve been busy.” She fingered my wedding band. 

A gross understatement. The wedding, the honeymoon, the pregnancy, Renesmee, Bella’s transition to vampire life…the Volturi. But the past few months had been quiet, and I was starting to hope that maybe Bella and I were finding our normal. 

“Last time we were here…,” I sighed. The memories were unpleasant. 

“You almost made love to me.”

I jolted. I was going to say that last time we were here, so much was uncertain. Our lives had been in near constant turmoil for so long, and Victoria had been dead less than a week. So many terrifying hurdles stretched before us, and I wasn’t sure if any of the decisions I was making were the right ones. I had been so worried for our future. Of course, Bella’s mind was ever the unexpected and baffling puzzle. She remembered so differently from me, focused on such different things. 

“I would say that’s a bit of an exaggeration.” I hadn’t so much as gotten a single button of her blouse undone before she’d stopped me. 

She huffed. “Wishful thinking on my part, I admit it.”

I blinked. Then, I propped myself up on my right elbow so that I could have a clear view of her over the grass and wild daisies. “You said you wanted me to stop.”

Her amber eyes glowed with mischief, but she agreed. “Yes, I did. And I _did_ want you to stop, for the record. It was the right choice, and I don’t regret it.”

But there was something she wasn’t saying, and when I gazed at her steadily, she conceded.

Bella rose to a seated position beside me. “Back when I was human,” she confessed, a little of her old human shyness creeping into her expression, “I would sometimes wonder about what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped you.”

I broke eye contact and I sat up too, releasing her hand. “Like, if I would have hurt you?” 

“You never would have hurt me.” 

As always, she refused to entertain the possibility, but I knew better. 

“And why on earth would I fantasize about that?” she scoffed.

I paused. “What do you mean by fantasize?” It was a very…suggestive word, especially given the context. A warm, hopeful tendril of want snaked through my abdomen, and downward. 

She laughed nervously. I met her eyes again and marveled at what I saw. If my Bella could, she would be blushing. She didn’t get like this as often as she used to, but direct conversations about sex still brought it out of her. When she finally answered me, it was in a whisper. “What do you think I mean?” 

She bit her lip and I might have pounced on her if she hadn’t suddenly straightened.

“Here,” she said, her cool caress coming to either side of my face. “Let me show you.” She breathed the words—there was no volume to them at all.

My whole body tensed with anticipation, with pleasure. I knew where this was going. Getting to hear Bella’s thoughts would never cease to be thrilling, no matter how mundane or inconsequential, and I had a feeling what she was about to share now would be anything but.

Bella’s brow furrowed while she concentrated. 

A moment of blankness, quiet, and then the images flooded. Bella impatiently clawing at the buttons of my shirt while I kissed her neck. Me rending fabric between the cups of her bra in two rather than working the clasp. Bella rolling her hips up into mine while I worked the button of her jeans between our bodies. Bella’s body naked in the sun, my skin throwing prisms of light over her nipples, her belly, as I lowered myself over her. And then I was thrusting, my lips on hers, her hands in my hair. 

But these were a fantasy tableau. They were blurry and dreamy, like watercolor, lacking the detail of visceral reality because they had never happened. They weren’t the only thoughts Bella was sending me though. They were accompanied by flashes of a dark room with a familiar ceiling, the sound of rain against the roof. Sheets moved against bare skin and a lovely body strained against exploring fingers, chasing pleasure, release. Strangled gasps, moans. Then a hungry whimper—my name. It was a memory. A memory of Bella touching herself while she thought of me taking her in the meadow. 

I couldn’t even begin to describe the noise that ripped from my throat. All I knew was that what Bella had just sent me was the most erotic thing I had ever seen. I abruptly had to reach down and adjust myself in my pants. 

Bella’s face came back into focus, her fingers trembling as she dropped her hands. I could see she was embarrassed, but she was also very pleased with my reaction. 

“I can’t believe I did that,” she said, followed by a breathless kind of laugh. Her eyes lingered on the front of my pants, where my hand still rested. “I think I picked the right one.”

“The right one?” 

She shrugged, her exhilaration evident. “I had a few meadow fantasies to choose from. But I didn’t think you would appreciate the ones I had about the first time we came here.”

The first time? As in, sexual fantasies about the day I had showed her what I looked like in the sun and almost killed her? That was insanity. But, of course, by now I was well used to Bella not reacting with fear and disgust when she should. Some of what I was thinking must have shown on my face, because she turned defiant.

“You brought me here alone, completely at your mercy, and spent the day with your chest naked. Like that wasn’t going to trigger a sexual awakening in me.”

When she put it like that…. Nonetheless, “It wouldn’t have gone that way. If I had gotten that close to you that day, if I had loosened my control even a little.”

“I know.” She was serious now. “But, come on. You can imagine why this meadow always came to mind while I was thinking of us taking that step, right? For a long time, I was absolutely certain I would lose my virginity to you right here in the grass. I always thought it would be here.”

That gave me pause. My arousal had dimmed and I was rubbing my face. Damn. Had I screwed up? Taken something from her by not consulting her about where we would spend our honeymoon?

But Bella caught me out. “I know what you are thinking, Edward Cullen, and don’t you dare. That was the best night of my life. Don’t you go regretting a second of it.”

I smiled at her wryly. Of course, she would be comforting me about this.

“It wasn’t as though I had my heart _set_ on the meadow or anything,” she clarified. “I’m practical enough to know that a bed is a better setting for a first time, especially given all the things we had to consider above the norm. When I tried to seduce you, it was in a bed, remember?” 

I did remember. With or without my perfect recall, every second of that night would have been emblazoned on my memory. Saying no to her had been almost as difficult as resisting her blood. Almost. I had been lucky that overcoming my bloodlust had honed my self-denial. I had been terrified about what giving in would mean for her safety. I still hadn’t been sure that it would even be possible for us at that point. My human girlfriend wanted to have sex with me, and I wanted it, too. God help me, but I wanted it bad. I had promised her I would try, and I made that promise with full intention of keeping my word, but research was needed first. 

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much. All the legends, all the diaries in Carlisle’s study detailed only instances of the human dying or left grievously injured. But it had to be possible. Tanya, Kate, and Irina had all managed it. After years of practice and trial and error that had resulted in some casualties, I reminded myself. Besides, they were all female, which made the role that they were playing in the act…mechanically different than the one I would be taking on. Freezing like a statue and letting Bella…do what she will…was always an option, if I could stand it. But how could that be anything other than a disappointing experience for her? She had _begged_ me. Surely, whatever she was picturing involved me participating. After a week of scouring the weirdest fringes of Carlisle’s library, I had resigned myself that I would need to ask him. 

To avoid the curious ears of the rest of my family, I chose his office at the hospital as the venue for this conversation. Of course, he knew something had been troubling me. After nearly a hundred years, Carlisle read me well, but he still hadn’t been prepared for what I was going to ask.

“Bella and I have been talking about her upcoming transformation. I want to make sure that she won’t sacrifice any human experiences that are important to her.”

Carlisle had nodded with approval. _That’s wise_ , he thought.

Here, I froze. The horrifying words lodged in my throat. His patient expression had changed to concern by the time I blurted, “She wants to have sex. With me. Before I turn her.” 

“Ah,” he said after a moment. His thoughts scrambled as he tried to formulate a diplomatic response. 

“I know it’s a bad idea. I agree with you completely.”

Carlisle sighed. “But?”

I grimaced. “It’s all she asked for.”

His kind eyes softened. “Edward, I know how you feel. I understand that you want to give Bella everything she asks for. But it is probably better to explore other options in this case.”

“I promised her.” 

Carlisle took a moment to gather himself. _So, that’s that then_. He cleared his throat. _Where to start?_ “Is Bella experienced?” he asked with all the candor and neutrality of a doctor gathering relevant information. 

I shook my head, then admitted, “We’re both virgins.” 

He nodded. I had just confirmed something he had suspected about me but not known for certain. But we both knew I didn’t need The Talk. I had been wandering the world for a hundred years with access to the thoughts of everyone around me. If anything, I knew more than he did. In the theoretical. In practice, well…. That was the issue, wasn’t it? This was not an area of my life where I had ever explored the edges of my limits. How could I know where the line was if I had never been close to it before? It wasn’t knowledge of sex I lacked, but knowledge of self.

He studied me while I thought, and to my surprise, he was becoming more optimistic. _Maybe. Maybe with careful consideration it will be all right. She inspires such tenderness and restraint in him._ “Perhaps there is an existing blueprint we might use. How did you come to master your thirst while with her?” 

“A world where she doesn’t exist is not an option,” I said simply. “The thirst is painful, but it means she’s alive and safe.”

That answer shored up his confidence further. “Use what you’ve learned there. I believe it will carry you through. And then there are the practical considerations.”

“Practical considerations?”

His manner was matter-of-fact. “She should be on top, especially at first. It’s a good position for virgins generally and will let her set the pace rather than you, which is ideal in this situation. The risk posed by your teeth and venom is likely too great for any kind of oral foreplay. Your fingers will do fine, and you have practice touching her without hurting her. And if her hymen is intact, it may be a good idea to have her break it ahead of time. There’s no reason to compound your difficulty by introducing blood to the occasion.” 

Every word of that would have been mortifying if it had been anyone other than Carlisle saying it. In the moment, I was just grateful. He thought I could do it, and he was giving me pragmatic advice, as though everything was going to be fine. 

And it was, mostly. At least, no one died. I took his advice, followed it to the letter, and made it through—tearing sheets, biting pillows, and cracking the headboard as she rode me through the greatest pleasure I’d ever known. I’d rolled us over so that I was on top at the end, to finish us both off. But I hadn’t been able to keep my hands off of her completely, and it seemed my touch wasn’t as gentle as Carlisle had assumed. I’d hurt her. 

“Besides,” Bella was saying, “it all worked out. I wouldn’t trade our honeymoon on Isle Esme for anything. Our first time was perfect.”

We were not in agreement there, I thought darkly. The bruises on her body the morning after would haunt me always, no matter what she said. 

“It was perfect,” she insisted as though I had spoken my misgivings aloud. She knew me too well. “And it was in a bed, in warm Brazil, so what do I know? If we’d done it here, with my luck, I probably would have gotten poison ivy and tick bites, shivering the entire time. Maybe even sprained my ankle on the hike back for good measure.” 

I laughed in spite of myself. I definitely did not miss how breakable she used to be. 

I leaned over and caressed her cheek, pressing a kiss onto the bridge of her nose. “You’re right. I just hate the idea of you missing out on anything you wanted.”

Her eyes roved my face, a set coming to her jaw that I recognized. She was gathering courage. “Who’s to say I have to miss out? We’re here now, aren’t we?”

“Yes, we are.” At the invitation in her words, I was getting hard again, already visualizing how I would tackle her to the grass. But I was also a little confused. Bella didn’t usually have to psych herself up to initiate sex with me, especially not when we were alone. Was I missing something?

Instead, I asked, “What would you like me to do?”

She worried her lip again, but there was elation in her eyes. I let her arrange my limbs until I was sitting just so, and I held the position obediently. Bella stood, brushed the grass from her jeans and then lowered herself into my lap, her knees on either side of my hips. She plucked her wedding ring off her finger, then gave me a significant look as she slipped it into my pocket. She wrapped her arms around my neck, a giddy kind of a smile on her lips. 

When I didn’t understand immediately, she prompted, “Familiar?”

And then it came to me: the meadow setting, her ring in my pocket, the two of us sitting just like this as I told her that it worried me how everything she was doing was to please other people, most of all me. I had made so many demands of her, and I would release her from all of them: she didn’t have to marry me, she didn’t have to wait years to become a vampire, or go to college, or any of it. But she had asked one thing of me only and I would honor that. I would make love to her—her happiness my only concern. This was where she had stopped me before, almost two years ago. 

My eyes widened. 

Bella shrugged. “What? It might be fun.” She said it like it didn’t matter to her either way, but I could tell from the vibration of excitement in her every movement that she wanted this. 

I swallowed. “You mean…? Like, pretend?”

“Yes. It’s two years ago. You’re planning to seduce me, and this time, I’m going to let you.” Her voice had that husky tenor that always tipped me off that she was wet. 

Just like that, I was hers. “Where do we start?”

She reached between our bodies and lifted my hand, separating and extending my index finger while she balled the rest. “You’re going to put your finger against my lips and say, ‘Don’t worry, Bella love. I haven’t forgotten.’ Then you are going to kiss me.”

Her human memory of my line wasn’t exact, but I wasn’t going to correct her. At the time, I had been determined, my insides in tortuous turmoil. But now, it was hard not to feel playful, not to just revel in pleasing my horny wife. 

I did as she asked, placing my finger on her soft lips. “Don’t worry, Bella love. I haven’t forgotten.” I tried to fill my intense gaze with the promise of all of the pleasure I was going to give her in this meadow today. 

She visibly trembled as I pulled her close and kissed her. Her needy whimper was sharp as my fingers wound into the curtains of her hair, her lips returning the kiss. She was clutching me in that way that used to make me worry she wasn’t breathing. Every inch of my body was thrilling at her enthusiasm. 

My foggy brain had to scramble to remember what came next, but the memory resurfaced in time. I rolled both of us to the grass, cradling her body beneath mine and settling my weight between her thighs. My kisses trailed to her chin, her throat. The entire length of me was pressing into the entire length of her. Her neck arched to meet my lips. I marveled at the way this felt now; I remembered the way this had felt then. How on earth had I ever managed to stop?

“Stop, Edward. Wait!”

Ah, yes. I recall now. No matter how far gone I was, those words, that voice would always be able to cut through my haze. I clenched a fist full of grass, forced one calming breath through my lungs, then two. I reined myself in and raised myself off her. But her hands clung to the fabric of my sleeves on each arm, keeping me from getting too far away.

Concerned, I searched her face, her rich brown hair splayed on the grass behind her. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked. 

She closed her eyes and groaned. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Why?’”

Wait. Were we still playing? “I thought you said you weren’t going to stop me this time.”

“I’m not. I just want to get to a certain part.”

The absurdity of the situation was starting to get to me and couldn’t help but laugh. “How am I supposed to know that? You didn’t tell me how far we are taking this. You say stop, I’m going to stop.”

Bella smiled affectionately. “I appreciate that. You’re right.” She lifted her body slightly and kissed my cheek. “How about this—in the future, if I want you to really stop, I’ll say—” her eyes cast about the meadow “—fern. I’ll say fern.” 

Lord help us. “Do…we have a safe word now? Is that what just happened?”

Bella giggled joyously, looking pleased with herself. “Yes, we do. Either of us can use it.” 

The thought sent a shiver of anticipation through me, half excitement, half apprehension. What was she getting me into?

“So,” I drew a shaky breath and lowered my body back down onto hers, “my line is ‘Why?’”

She nodded. “And then I say, ‘I’m not sure.’”

She’d lost me again. “That isn’t what you said.”

Bella rolled her eyes and grumbled about vampire memories. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not stopping you this time.”

“But if you say, ‘I’m not sure,’ then my next line doesn’t make sense.”

Her shoulders shrugged against the grass. “Then skip it.” 

I took in how taut with expectation she was, how shy her expression had gotten, and then I understood. “This next line of mine, after the one I'm skipping, it’s the one you want, isn’t it?” The inspiration for all her fantasies about that day.

She didn’t have to confirm it for me to know I was right. She placed an unsteady hand on my chest, over my heart. “Say it now like you said it then. Please,” she pleaded in a whisper. 

I took myself back to that moment. I dug deep for the emotion, the _need_ , that had inspired the words. It wasn’t difficult. “I love you. I want you. Right now.”

And then I did something I had wanted to do two years ago but hadn’t dared. I pressed the full length of my erection between her legs. The noise Bella made was not something I had ever heard before, and if I didn’t know better, I would have worried she was about to pass out. I kissed her back to responsiveness. 

“Edward, oh, Edward,” she gasped against my mouth, her hips frantically rolling upward into me. “That was perfect—yes, oh, yes…yes.” 

“What’s next?” I asked raggedly.

“Huh?” 

“In the script, what’s next?” 

“Nothing. We’re off script. Now you have your way with me.”

I heard a tearing sound, and chuckled breathlessly when I realized it was my shirt. She was shredding it in her impatience. It reminded me of something. True, we were past the point of where we left off in our memory, but that didn’t mean there was no script to follow. I thought of that perfect human girl, masturbating in her bed, grabbing a free moment when I was not around for some release. She deserved to have her dream become a reality. 

So, it was with purpose that I gripped the hem of her blouse and lifted it over her head and off in one move. 

“Careful,” she gasped. “I’m human, remember?” 

“Human?” I taunted, gesturing to the tattered shreds of my shirt. 

Bella gave me an imploring look and I conceded the point. She was right—we were still playing. 

I shrugged out of what was left of my poor shirt and let it drop to the ground, leaving me bare from the waist up. Then, I trailed an index finger from her bellybutton up to her sternum, sliding it under the connecting fabric between the cups of her white satin bra. I paused, holding eye contact with her, letting the moment take on meaning, letting it dawn on her what I was doing. With a flick of my wrist, the fabric tore with a snapping sound, the cups flying open, revealing Bella’s delicate pink nipples. Her response was such a lovely whimper. I took her mouth with mine while I worked her arms through the straps of her bra and tossed it away. 

I cupped each breast and brushed the nipples with the pads of my thumbs, back and forth with excruciating slowness, the way I knew she liked. In my periphery, I could see Bella’s hands pawing at the grass, tearing up clumps to the root. I kissed the lines of her collarbones, the swells of her breasts. I didn’t suckle or lick the way I did now; instead, I worshiped her chest the way I had on our honeymoon, when she was still human—venom saliva minimal and teeth never exposed. I was on my best behavior now, playing by the rules. 

With an aim to recreate the picture from her fantasy precisely, I murmured a command in her ear, “Hump me, Bella.” 

She whimpered and did as I instructed, the pulsing pressure against my erection the most excruciating kind of blissful torture. I reached between us and my hands went to work on the fastenings of Bella’s jeans. When I had the button open, zipper down, I straightened up. I reached behind me for Bella’s feet, locked there as a result of her legs holding my hips in a vice. I removed her shoes and then hitched her legs up from around my hips, so that they were in front of me, her toes pointing at the sky. In a gentle, deliberate motion, I slid her jeans and underwear over her curves, down her legs, and off. They were tossed the way of her bra. I spread her legs and lowered them again on either side of me.

I gazed adoringly down at the sight. Bella was naked, a wanton creature of erotic myth in grass before me. Breathtakingly beautiful, and mine for the taking. 

Her hand came up to stroke the side of my face; I turned my head to kiss her palm. 

“Edward, I need you inside me,” she blurted. 

I wanted so desperately to comply at once. But that wasn’t the game. I shook my head. “You’re a virgin, right?”

Her breathing stuttered. “Yes, I’m a virgin.” 

“Then you should be prepared first.” My left hand cupped her between her legs, and she gasped. “I wouldn’t want to hurt you,” I said, my voice low. 

My thumb began a purposeful, circular stroke of her clitoris, and Bella was tearing at the grass on either side of her again. I presented her with the index finger of my right hand at the entrance of her mouth. Bashfully, her lips parted and she let me in, suckling as she coated the finger with saliva. My wet finger slid inside her heat easily; she clenched around it tightly, then shuddered in pleasure. I didn’t let up on her clitoris and took my time. I added a second finger, then a third, as she descended into a frenzy. I couldn’t believe how hot this was, how hard I was. This game was for her, but it was driving me crazy.

Her head rolled back as she rode my fingers with demanding circular hip thrusts. “So good. Your fingers always feel so good. So much better than mine did.” 

“Yeah?” I was preoccupied watching her pleasure, but some curiosity found its way to the surface.

She may have nodded, but it might also have just been shaking from her oncoming orgasm. “Mine were too warm, too soft. Your fingers feel like your cock.”

God, she was trying to kill me. I needed to be inside her, _now_. But she was peaking, I could feel it in the pulsing vice around my thrusting fingers, and I could hear it in the pitch of her moans. Sure enough, seconds later, she went to pieces in my hands, calling my name. 

As soon as I was certain she had milked her pleasure to fullest, I removed the rest of my clothing with inhuman speed, and I lowered myself over her. Bella on top had served us well in our real first time, but this was not that. This was about fulfilling Bella’s fantasy, and in the fantasy, I had been on top. I tried to enter her slowly, but Bella bucked her hips and I slid in to the hilt. I winced, the ecstasy exquisite—I was not going to last long. 

I opened my eyes and Bella was gazing up at me with wonder. I felt the same as I began to thrust. Slowly, gently, holding the bulk of my weight off of her. As though she were human. I pulled from those times after the first on Isle Esme, when I had finally figured out how to do this safely. The whole endeavor had been so stressful at the time. Sex with human Bella had been so much pressure, the stakes so high, and all of it riding on my personal restraint. What if I had hurt her physically? Or, just as horrifying, emotionally or psychologically? She was all I wanted in my existence, and what if I ruined it all, right there at the finish line? But this game, sex with pretend human Bella…was thrilling. It was freeing. Maybe, it was even cathartic. 

Waves of pleasure shuddered through me as my body rocked over hers. 

“Love you, Edward. I love you,” Bella chanted as she always did when I was inside her. Her eyes were closed now as she narrowed in on her second orgasm. When she came apart, I went with her this time, the release so acute, I cried out. 

The satisfaction that followed in the afterglow was new, it had a different shape to it than I was used to. I always felt close to her in throbbing ebb of a fading climax, but just now I felt…I didn’t know. This was something different. 

I kissed her brow and stayed atop her because Bella didn’t like it when I pulled out of her right away. I propped myself up on my elbow and peered down at her. “Bella?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you still human?”

She gave a fully blissed-out sigh. “No, not anymore.”

I chuckled. Good; I wouldn’t hold back for the next round. 

“That was fun.”

Her eyes cracked open and she studied my face. “Fun?”

“Hot,” I confessed. 

She grinned. “Well, maybe we can do it again sometime.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, trying to temper my reaction, but of course she could feel me hardening again inside her. “I mean, you probably have more fantasies I could make come true, right?”

From the expression that came over her face…yes. Yes, she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it wasn’t obvious, this fic is _Midnight Sun_ ’s fault. The bastard. It goes without saying that a few lines of dialogue in this chapter were pulled right from _Eclipse_ , and are thus 100% Stephenie’s. This isn’t my first ever fic, but it is my first venture into Twilight fandom. If you enjoyed the story or have feedback for me, please float me a comment. Currently, the plan is for this story to be some character-driven smut (whatever that is) from Edward’s POV, and I am thinking it will land in the range of 8-9 chapters. Thanks for reading—hope to see you at the next one!


	2. Prom

I returned home from a run late in the afternoon, when the air turned heavy with a drizzle portending the coming storm. My footfalls slowed when I caught sight of Alice crossing from the big house to intercept me at the side door of my cottage, two garment bags over her arm. 

“Bella’s not going to be happy with you,” I said, holding the door open for her anyway. 

Alice slipped by me and into the kitchen. I followed. 

“Shows what you know. Bella asked for these.” Her tone was a little smug.

That took me aback. “What are they?”

Alice answered me with images in her thoughts rather than out loud: an off-the-shoulder, gauzy, deep blue Oscar de la Renta gown and a black Armani tuxedo. 

“Our prom clothes?” I asked surprised.

“Yep,” Alice chirped, draping the garment bags over the back of a kitchen chair. 

“Why?”

“It’s a sex thing,” she answered casually. 

For a moment, I wondered if I had somehow managed to choke on air. 

Alice looked disapprovingly at whatever expression my face was making. “Don’t be such a prude, Edward.” 

“A sex thing? How?” 

My questions would often prompt thoughts to the surface, but in this case she was controlled, not revealing whatever she had seen in her vision. She spread her palms. “Bella asked if I still had these lying around. I told her I did, and she wanted them. I was curious, but when the visions started, I realized where they were going and aborted.” 

By now I had gathered myself, and simply nodded. Alice and I both understood the delicate balance of trying to respect the boundaries of our family against the invasive nature of our gifts. You did your best, but sometimes you would hear or see something private, and all you could do was pretend you hadn’t, to them and to yourself. I was still confused, because Bella hadn’t even wanted to go to prom, but I appreciated Alice’s discretion. 

“Just one problem.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Your tie is missing.” 

When she said that, my mind raced as I puzzled and then remembered where it was. Alice was ahead of me, spinning out visions of me opening the box at the back of my closet, then of herself doing it now that the hiding place had been revealed. “There it is!” she declared triumphantly, heading there at once.

I was a little slow in pursuit, thrown by the reminder of the existence of the box. I was speaking as I rounded the corner, “Alice….” 

But she had already stopped, the shoe box in her hands but unopened. She was seeing what she would find in there. My blue bow tie, the one that matched Bella’s dress, yes—but also, my boutonnière, a note Bella had passed me once in class rescheduling some plans because she had forgotten she had a shift at work, a broken hair tie and tube of chap stick she had left in my car, and a misshapen mess of a daisy chain she had made in the meadow one afternoon, long since dry and brittle. 

The box had been moved here along with all of my other belongings, but I hadn’t thought of it in a long time and I hadn’t opened it since I first filled and closed it—when we had all left Forks in the aftermath of Bella’s disastrous eighteenth birthday party. 

_Oh, Edward_. Pity was all over her face, and it grated on me.

I took the box from her. Lifting the lid enough for my hand to slip inside, I retrieved the tie and let it fall closed again. 

“It’s fine, Alice.” I wove around her and replaced the box at the back of the closet. I didn’t want to talk about it. I tossed her the tie. “We found it.”

She caught it easily and ran through some scenarios in her head, but found I wasn’t receptive to opening up about my keepsakes in any of them, so she gave in. She settled for stepping forward and giving my hand a comforting squeeze. 

“Yes, Bella will be pleased.” 

I nodded. “I think she should be home soon.”

“Nine minutes,” Alice confirmed. 

We walked back to the bright little kitchen and Alice placed the tie atop the garment bags. “I’ll head out.”

“You don’t have to.” I wanted to reassure her that I wasn’t upset. 

“It’s not that,” Alice said, answering my unspoken words as soon as I decided to say them. I saw a flash of a memory from earlier today in Alice’s head, Bella’s anxious face. “I think she might be a bit nervous about…,” she gestured to our formal wear. “I’ll to give you two some space.” 

I frowned. “Should I be bracing myself?” 

Alice’s answer was breezy. “No, not about tonight. She’s just shy. You will respond more favorably than she is thinking. This time.” 

The last words were almost an afterthought, and I could tell she was immediately unsure whether or not she should have said them. 

I looked at her squarely. “Elaborate.” 

Rolling her eyes, Alice silently called me ridiculous. I tried to dig into her thoughts, but she was stonewalling me with memories of last weekend’s shoe shopping trip. “Don’t overreact. This is normal. You two are getting into your respective kinks and fantasies, right?”

My hand gripped the chairback in front of me tightly, too tightly. There was no doubt in my mind that I was making the face Alice had dubbed prudish again. 

“I didn’t pursue the visions when I realized what they were, but that seemed to be the gist.” 

“And?” I prompted through clenched teeth. 

“Don’t be surprised if you don’t like all of hers. Which is fine—you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, and your feelings are as valid as hers. But you shouldn’t tell her so in a way that makes her feel bad.” Her eyes were steely. “I’m serious, Edward. If you make her cry or feel ashamed, I will be very cross with you.” 

My temper flared, and I opened my mouth to snap that I would never do any such thing. But then her brow raised and I abruptly cooled; if Alice was bringing it up, she must have seen it in a vision. I didn’t like the reminder that there were still myriads of ways that I could hurt Bella, but my sister was right.

I nodded curtly. 

She accepted my answer, pleased. Then she wished me luck and fluttered out the door. 

The chair I had been gripping scraped against the floor as I pulled it backward. I dropped into it, eyeing the garment bags warily. Since our afternoon in the meadow a week ago, I had been looking forward to exploring Bella’s next fantasy. The first one had been so electrifying, so intimate. But Alice’s words gave me pause. What could Bella possibly want from me that I would find distasteful? I wished I could say nothing, but I knew that wasn’t true. There were plenty of sex acts and fetishes I found personally unappetizing, or even repellent. What other people did was their business, and I tried not judge them for it as long as it was consensual. But I was an old-fashioned animal in my desires and boundaries; a great many things were outside my comfort zone and lying to myself would not help me prepare. My mind whirled with possibilities. Well, Alice had said tonight’s fantasy would not be a problem, but I did not know how comforting that should be.

I heard Bella’s car arrive and park in the garage. When she walked in, it was through the front door and into the parlor. “Edward?”

“In the kitchen.” I rose from my chair and met her at the archway connecting the two rooms. 

Bella’s face broke into a wide smile when she saw me. She was wearing a light turtleneck sweater and black jeans, her hair tousled and damp from the rain. So lovely. I cupped her cheek and pressed my lips to hers. “Welcome home.”

I tried to pull back, but she kissed me again. I smiled against her lips. 

“How’s Charlie?” I asked when she released me. 

“Good. He’s really getting into this grandpa thing.” 

“Yeah?” 

Bella elaborated. “Renesmee planned a whole slumber party for the two of them eating ice cream, painting their nails, and watching scary movies. He had no objections.”

I laughed. 

She grumbled. “If I sound bitter, it’s because he hasn’t tried to force fishing on her once. It was _years_ before he stopped trying with me.”

I rubbed her upper arm in a reassuring way. “It just means he learned from his experience.” 

Her eyes caught Alice’s delivery behind me. “What’s…?” she began, but then took in the bow tie. “Oh.”

“Yes, Alice dropped them off. She said you wanted them.”

She glanced from me, to the bags, and back again—then Bella groaned and covered her face. “She told you.”

“Not really.” I lifted her hands from her eyes and pulled her toward me, into my arms. My own anxiety was gone now that I could see her distress. I wanted to make her feel safe, safe to tell me anything. “No details, but I deduced that it might be related to what we talked about in the meadow. Our next game?”

Bella smiled weakly. “I hadn’t decided for sure. It was more just something I was thinking about. Tonight seemed like it might be a good time.”

“Because Renesmee is sleeping at Charlie’s?” 

She nodded. 

“I confess to being a little blindsided.” I lifted her by the hips and walked her to the table, setting her down to sit beside the zippered pile, feet dangling over the side. “You didn’t want to go to prom. Alice and I basically had to kidnap you. And now I find you have a fantasy you want to play out?” 

Her small laugh warmed me. “It’s not like that.”

“Not like what?” 

“Not like I secretly wanted to go to prom all along. This fantasy wasn’t something I thought up before. It came after, when and Angela and Jessica were telling me about their nights. Angela lost her virginity to Ben. Jessica didn’t go all the way, but she went further than she had before.” Bella’s forearm was resting on my shoulder, her fingers stroking the hair at the nape of my neck idly as she talked. The information she shared wasn’t a surprise to me, as I had heard the thoughts of everyone involved in the days afterward, but it did surprise me that Bella had compared her experience to that of her friends. “I started to think of what a similar night would have looked like for us.” 

This seemed reasonable to me. I could imagine how it might feel to watch your friends reaching milestones around you, to want to keep step with them. Especially if said milestone was something you wanted to do anyway, and Bella was confirming for me what I had long suspected: that yes, even that early in our relationship, she had wanted to have sex with me. 

She sighed. “So, it was thought up post hoc, and I added to it, changed it over time, until it seemed like something that could have happened. Just, it didn’t.” 

My brows pulled together. “Bella love, it couldn’t have happened. Not that early.” 

I thought of the way it felt to be inside Bella, to have her core stretch for me, clench me, milk me—and knew, _knew_ in my bones that I hadn’t been strong enough not to hurt her that night. Not yet. It would take eight months apart and three days of believing she was dead to teach me that the only real hell was existence without her and that no physical sensation, pain or pleasure, could compare. I had needed that crucible to bring my self-discipline into maturity. 

“No, it’s not…,” Bella stumbled over her words. “It’s not sex.”

“What?”

“The fantasy is not sex, at least, not the way you mean.” My confusion prompted her to explain, her eyes fixed on her knees. “You were really clear—no sex for us. But I was so…. I wanted…. There _had_ to be a way we could explore without crossing the line, without it becoming unsafe, right?” She shrugged. “So my fantasies were mostly about us touching each other, or touching ourselves in front of each other.” 

I swallowed. What she was describing was so erotic. And so sad. I was reminded of a conversation, years ago, when we had first been getting to know each other. When I asked about her college and career plans, she talked about the practicalities of scholarships and state schools, her plan to become a professor at a community college because it was the most attainable of her ambitions. I’d marveled at the time that all of her dreams had clipped wings, wanting nothing more than to open doors of possibility for her, and it was occurring to me now that something similar had happened in her sexual awakening due to my lack of availability. 

She was studying my face, and her eyes widened with sudden epiphany. 

“What is it?” 

Bella shook her head bitterly. “I was a fool, wasn’t I? I thought I was playing by the rules with those fantasies, and I kept waiting for our physical relationship to progress that way, but I was too shy to ask for what I wanted and you never made a move. And that’s because it didn’t matter, right? It was never about a specific checklist of things we could and couldn’t do. It was like with hunting—you letting go of your control at all around me was the dangerous part.”

I wished I could tell her she was wrong. I closed the distance between us, my hand cradling her head into the crook of my neck. Self-loathing welled in me, old friend of my days before her turning; I wished I could have been something other than what I was for her. And maybe, even as the monster, I could have done more, should have tried harder? My pleasure had been out of the question, obviously. But all those nights in her bed, listening to her heart race every time I kissed her, why had I never thought to satisfy her with my fingers? Surely, even with my unnatural hungers and deadly strength, I could have managed that?

Part of it, I knew, was how repulsive I had believed the feel of my skin must be for her, how unpleasant the chill of my proximity. It was a long, long time, before I began to trust that Bella didn’t perceive my touch the way I thought she did. And I definitely had not understood the way Bella felt about sex. I started to get an idea when she declared it the only human experience she would not sacrifice, but it didn’t really hit me until weeks into our honeymoon, after she begged me for more even after our rough first time, seduced me, and then offered me months—years more of her humanity so long as I continued to make love to her, that I began to appreciate just how important sex was to Bella. In those early days, I never would have guessed how central physical intimacy was to Bella’s love language, how high her sex drive could really be. 

I stroked her hair. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Bella. Nothing you wanted was wrong.”

Bella straightened up, a half smile on her lips. “Wrong and naive are different things,” she said wryly. She eyed the blue bow tie beside her. “It was silly, anyway.”

“Oh, no you don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

I grinned at her. “Don’t you downplay it now. I am giving you your fantasy.” 

She laughed. “You still don’t even know what it is.” 

I shrugged, lifting the tie. “I assume it involves some dress up?” 

Bella’s expression was strangely tender as she watched my face. She nodded. 

“Then we should get dressed.”

I stepped back so that she could hop down from the table. We each took our garment bag and parted with a kiss, splitting off to separate bathrooms. I expected that I would finish before she did and planned to wait patiently, even putting on some music in the parlor, but then I heard her growling and cursing. 

“Bella?” I called through the door, knocking lightly.

“Come in,” she mumbled. 

The dress still fit her the way I remembered, draping over every curve of her body like it was inviting sin. She had thrown on some simple makeup, a rare occurrence—eyeliner, lipstick, and a little blush from the look of it. Bare feet peeked out from under her hem as she moved. She had attempted to curl her hair and pin some of it up the way Alice had done on prom night, and that seemed to be the source of the frustration. I didn’t need an explanation to see that it had not been going well. 

Despite my better nature, I couldn’t hold back the chuckle.

She glowered. 

“May I be of service?”

Bella lifted and dropped her shoulders despondently, which I took as a yes. 

I entered the room and surveyed the situation, standing beside her at the sink. When I had an idea of where things had gone off the rails, I began gently disentangling the damage. It looked worse than it was—really, all we were looking at was a few misplaced and poorly angled bobby pins. 

“Well, we’re off to a good start.” 

I smiled. “It’s not that bad, Bella.”

“No, not bad at all. Except that I am a grown woman who can’t do my own hair.” 

“You can. You do it every day,” I reminded her. “Curls are fussy. You don’t usually mess with them, so you don’t have as much practice, that’s all.” I piled the curls the way I remembered, but they didn’t look exactly right. Bella and I, even with our combined efforts, could not match the artistry of Alice. 

Bella was watching the progress in the mirror. “It looks so much neater. Like the mornings you do Renesmee’s hair.” 

There was no denying I had more of a knack for tidy braids, buns, and ponytails than Bella. Bella did Renesmee’s hair the way she did her own: simply, the result always looking effortless, a little messy, a little windswept and romantic. 

“I like the way you do Renesmee’s hair.” The sincerity in my voice gave her pause. I stepped back and surveyed our work. “I think that is closest we are going to come without calling in reinforcements.” 

Bella agreed. She gestured to the vanity stool where her satin shoes were waiting. “I think I am just going to wear both of them. Throwing in a fake cast just seems like…a bit much.”

“I don’t think we need it. So long as that cast didn’t play a key role in the scenario. Did it?” 

First she was scandalized, then she cringed. “What? Ew! No! Of course not.”

I laughed, entertained by her outrage. It had been an out-there kind of question on my part, but Alice’s words from earlier may had left me a little paranoid. I knew first hand that the world was full of people with unconventional fixations. For all I knew, Bella had some, and I was making no assumptions that anything was off the table until proven otherwise. The game I was playing with Bella required that I try to be open-minded, and I had promised Alice that when I couldn’t be, I would at least be kind. 

Bella sat on the stool and I knelt to help her into her shoes, crisscrossing the ribbons up her calves for her. It was impossible not to become distracted and I found myself brushing my lips against her knees. Nuzzling the skin of her inner thighs, I tied the bows at the top, reveling in the feel of her soft skin against my cheeks, brows, and nose. I could hear her breathing quicken, the scent of her arousal on the air. I felt Bella’s left hand sink into my hair, holding my head in place. I kissed the inside of her right knee dutifully. My eyes rose up to her face and her lids were drooped low, her lips parted. 

Damn. We needed to get back on track.

“So, what game are we playing tonight?” I asked huskily.

“Hmm?”

My smirk was involuntary. It was impossible to be humble when Bella was this hot for me. I freed my hair from her grip and rose to my feet, then I bridal lifted her into my arms. I carried her to the parlor where I had left music playing. I allowed her legs to drop free and lowered her so that each of her feet were balanced on top of mine. 

“You’re the devil, Edward Cullen.” But there was no venom to her words. She wrapped her arms around my neck and held tight when I began to dance us around the room. 

“I’m just trying to keep us on task,” I said. A bold statement given that we both knew I was the one who started it, and sure enough, she snorted, unimpressed. She could also feel the evidence of my hypocrisy, the full-blown erection I was pressing into her belly. “Besides, this is prom, right? I carried you everywhere because you didn’t have your crutches. We danced, like this, your feet on top of mine. What comes next?”

I couldn’t see her face because she was flush against me. I felt her hand tighten on the back of my neck; she used the leverage to rub herself against me to the tempo of the song. I groaned. 

“Bella…?”

“What?” she said, her breath against my ear. “This is part of it. How could it not be? Our bodies were so close—you looked _so good_. How could I not want this? Tell me you did, too.” Her wet tongue swept my earlobe, and my hips jerked against hers. 

Truthfully, the thought of dry humping her on the dance floor never occurred to me at the time. Of course, now I would never be able to dance with her again without thinking of it. 

She had it backwards— _she_ was the devil. 

My hands gripped her hips and stilled them. “Bella,” I managed, my voice strained. “If you don’t stop that, I am going to cum in my pants.”

Her response was a keening sigh. “That’s okay.”

“But is it your fantasy?”

That made her pause. “No,” she admitted with a grumble. She stepped back, off my toes and onto the hardwood floor. We weren’t touching anymore and just like that, my body was brought back from the brink. Her expression was surly. “None of that was, really. I was just worked up. Here in private is fine, but I would never want to do something like that in front of other people.” 

That checked out. Bella hated people paying attention to her. There was no way she was an exhibitionist. Internally, I let loose a sigh of relief, crossing a lot of things I wouldn’t want to do off the list of things Bella might ask me for. 

“You made it up?” 

“You kissed my thighs!” 

I burst out laughing; she resisted, trying to look stern, but couldn’t help herself, and we were cracking up together. 

“Okay, what is it then?”

“My fantasy?” 

I nodded. “Moment of truth.” 

She smiled up at me with playful eyes. “Let’s go for a drive.” 

Was she going to drag me to the gazebo on the school grounds? A janitor’s closet or an empty classroom? Wouldn’t breaking and entering be taking things too far? “Where are we headed?” 

She shrugged. “Where would you drive if you were going to steal my virtue in the back seat of your car?” 

Damn. Well…that answered that. And unlike feeling Bella up on the dance floor, this was something I actually had thought about before. 

We turned out all the lights, powered down the stereo, and locked up the house. Light rain sprinkled each of us on the dash to the garage. 

As I fired up the engine and moved to back us out, I felt Bella’s hand come to rest atop mine on the Volvo’s gearshift. Initially, I thought it was just a sweet little caress, like we did with each other all the time, but then her thoughts rushed into me. As before, they were hazy and dreamlike, but this time she took me through the scenario, moment by moment, showing me exactly what she had imagined in excruciating detail. By the end, my hands were clenched so tightly I was worried for the steering wheel and gearshift of my car and I was on the brink of exploding again. 

I snatched my hand out from under hers. “Jesus, Bella!”

She giggled, delighted that she had made me curse in front of her. She knew I hated doing that. 

“That was….” I was at a loss for words. Based on our conversation earlier, I had expected something more reserved.

But Bella was making no apologies, it seemed. “Well, if all of it was impossible anyway, I want the naughtiest version. The one even I knew was out of the question at the time.”

Out of the question—a fair description. I gazed at her hungrily, so glad that was no longer the case.

“So,” she ventured. “Now that you know…you want to?”

“I want to.” My voice came out almost as a growl. 

She shivered. 

I peeled out of the garage, tires squealing before we hit the road. Bella braced herself and shot me a disapproving look. Becoming a vampire had done nothing to endear Bella to fast driving. She almost always drove the Ferrari I bought her at or under the speed limit, which should be a crime. 

“Isn’t going this far into the national park a little overkill?” She asked me almost twenty minutes later. When I looked over, she was clenching fists of her dress on her thighs, her impatience evident on every line of her face. 

“Your dad is the chief of police. This is exactly what I would have done then, and what I am doing now. The last thing anyone needs is for one of his deputies to catch us.”

“You’d hear them approach.”

“Not with you wriggling on my lap, I wouldn’t.” 

She scoffed, but let it go. 

I reached the spot I had chosen and pulled off the road, under an ancient willow that provided the car some cover. I killed the engine and then the only sound was the rain hitting the car. The gathering droplets and drooping branches of feathery leaves caused the moonlight to cast shadows through the windshield and onto Bella’s face. 

She looked at me with question in her eyes. Was I ready?

I nodded.

Bella drew a breath, and began. “Why are we stopping here, Edward?”

Seductive, I reminded myself. She wanted me to initiate. I dropped my voice low. “Why do you think?”

She chewed her lip. “I thought we couldn’t?”

“I can’t help myself anymore. I want you.” My eyes searched her face. “Is that all right?”

I felt a little corny saying these things, but she’d scripted the lines, and they were having an effect. Bella appeared to be too overwhelmed for a coherent response, and just nodded fervently. She wasn’t much of an actress, so I knew it was genuine—I was delivering what she wanted. I made a mental note to tell Bella how much I desired her more often; that was a reoccurring theme of our last game and this one. She liked the idea of me being so overcome with lust that it sidelined my better judgment. 

I got out and walked to her door, opening it and lifting her into my arms. She kissed my jawline and neck in the rain while I did the logistical work of moving us both to the back seat, sliding us in with her perched sideways on my lap, arms around my neck. 

Without preamble, I buried my face in her hair, dropping greedy kisses behind her ear and along her nape, and I slipped my hand under the hem of her gown. And up. My fingers trailed with purpose from her ankles, up along the latticed ribbons adorning her calves, to her knees, over the swells of her thighs, bunching her skirts as I went and leaving her trembling legs bare. I felt a thrill as I reached the juncture between her legs, my fingertips grazing the lace of her panties. I usually took my time working my way to this point—I had never just gone for it like this, but maybe I should sometimes. Bella was practically hyperventilating. 

“Open,” I commanded. 

She parted her thighs obediently and I took advantage. 

We both moaned. 

“You’re wet.” It was my line, but it was also true. 

“Yes,” she gasped. “I want you. So much.”

I found I was grinding my erection against her soft bottom—not part of the game, but it was involuntary at this point. With effort, I reined myself back in and got on track. 

Both of my hands were under her skirt now, peeling her underwear down her legs. I guided her movement with a deliberate touch and rearranged her so that she was straddling me, skirts bunched at her waist, her glistening sex naked to my eyes and poised over my lap. My hands on her hips pulled her firmly, down and forward, until she was pressed against the zipper of my tuxedo pants and the full, hard length underneath. 

“Show me,” I growled. 

She whimpered in response and writhed against me. I made a pretense of shepherding the movement of her hips at first, but it was just for show, because it was part of the game. Bella knew what to do; this whole scene had been conjured by her devious imagination, after all. I let go of her, balling my hands into fists and locking my body down. Just like with the last time, we were playing that she was human. My touch and movement might be dangerous in the heat of passion, so would sit back and let her have her way, her pleasure. 

And that’s what this was. Her hands were braced on my shoulders, her were eyes closed, her head thrown back, and she was squirming, straining, rocking in my lap—using my cock to get herself off. 

“Edward, my Edward.” Her every breath was filled with such needy want, they almost sounded like whines. “You feel…. Oh God, the way you feel….” 

It was torture to hold still. There were no words for how what she was doing felt—the friction of fabric, her wet seeping through the layers, her hot hole just on the other side begging to be filled. But I was also transfixed watching her pleasure. She was so into this, it was breathtaking. 

“Edward, my nipples are aching,” she panted.

That had my attention. 

“I need your hands on me.”

This wasn’t part of the scenario she had shown me, but I could deny her nothing. I pushed her already off-the-shoulder neckline and strapless bra down, over the swell of her breasts, until her lovely chest was revealed. I cupped her with my hands, stroking and tugging her nipples. 

She kissed me hard. Her body was vibrating with tension and I knew she was close. 

“Come for me, Bella.”

And she did. 

I held her as she cried out and her frame wracked with ecstasy. She came down from her high with a euphoric smile on her face. “God, that was good,” she breathed. 

With a throaty noise of exhilaration, Bella repositioned, pulled back from me. She took in how taut I was, my ravenous eyes, how desperate my situation had become. A naughty smirk on her lips, she traced my bulge with a single teasing finger. “Your turn.” 

I pushed her hand away and unfastened my pants so impatiently, I think I may have broken the zipper. I fished my erection free, groaning with relief, and began stroking myself in front of her. _For_ her. It was wild to me, but she wanted to watch. We had never done this before, but there was no time for the moment to feel awkward, not with the way she was looking at me, not with how desperate I was for release. I focused on her rapt expression, her bare skin, her crumpled dress, her open legs—right there, inches away—and knew my release would fast-coming. 

Bella could see I was close. “On me,” she breathed. I needed no reminder. Her fantasy had been seared into my brain. 

But her words did it, sent me over the edge. I came with a rasping grunt, wave after wave of pleasure shooting through me, from me, and onto her. I kept stroking until the overstimulation became painful, then collapsed, limp and spent, into the seat. My head tilted back, the crest of the seat cushion cradling my neck, and I watched the raindrops hit the rear windshield above me while I caught my breath. 

Then Bella was peppering my face with kisses, caressing my jaw, stoking my hair. “Thank you. Edward, you’re a saint.”

That startled a laugh out of me. “I don’t think anything we just did qualifies as remotely saint-like.” 

Bella’s face was serious. Her expression was one of such softness, such adoration. She gently traced her thumb along one of my eyebrows and down over my cheek. “I just mean that you’re so good to me.” 

I swallowed. “Well, I love you.” I captured her wrist in my hand and brought it to my lips. 

She smiled. “We should do some of yours, too.”

“Mine?”

“Your fantasies.” 

I hadn’t been expecting that. I didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me that Bella might want to reciprocate—of course she would. “Maybe,” I deflected, and I sat us both up. 

We surveyed ourselves, and Bella snickered. 

“I know,” I said. “Alice is going to be so mad.” 

“Well, maybe this will teach her not to splurge on formal wear for me.” Bella was fighting with her strapless bra, struggling to shimmy it back into place. 

I moved to help her. “I doubt it. You have no idea how many couture pieces Emmett has ruined over the years, and that hasn’t stopped her.” 

We righted our clothing and cleaned up as best we could with the package of wet wipes I kept in the glove compartment. 

“Home?” I asked as I turned the key and brought the car back to life. 

“Home,” she confirmed. 

As we drove, she placed her hand over mine on the gearshift once more. “Again, Edward, thank you.” 

I grinned. “Trust me, it was no hardship. This is fun for me, too.” The road in front of me was winding and wending, the reflection of my headlights in the water on the blacktop. “And honestly, when you said prom, I was worried it was going to be something crazy or illegal. This was very straightforward.”

Bella’s brows rose. “Crazy or illegal? Really?”

“You know, like it was going to necessitate breaking into Forks High School or something.” I laughed off my earlier worries. “It’s definitely a relief not commit trespassing just to fulfill a fantasy.” 

It was almost fifteen seconds before it really hit me that Bella had not responded and she was no longer meeting my eyes. My dumbfounded brain processed what that probably meant.

“Wait—are you serious? You fantasized about the two of us having sex in school?” 

She withdrew her hand, folding her arms across her chest, her manner flustered. “It’s not that strange, Edward. It was one fantasy and I wasn’t even going to bring it up.” 

“You weren’t? Why not?” 

Her mouth fell open. “Are you serious? It’s pretty obvious why not. I wasn’t planning on breaking laws either.” 

She turned to look out the window and I goggled. Was she really just going to stop there?

We drove in silence for another five minutes before the curiosity broke me. “Well…what is it?”


	3. Biology

It was the strangest thing. For the three days following our prom night fantasy, both of us kept saying that we didn’t want to do this, that we weren’t going to do this…and yet, here we were, on day four, letting ourselves into Forks High School at one in the morning. God, this was ridiculous. We were turning into sex fiends. The campus was deserted due to Spring Break, but we made absolutely sure. There were no cars in any of the parking lots, no lights left on, no audible heartbeats within a mile. There were also no cameras or alarms. 

We were still going to hell, make no mistake, but we probably weren’t going to get caught tonight. 

“Well, that’s a smell,” Bella said as she climbed into Mr. Banner’s classroom. 

I had gone in first and was holding the awning style window open for her. “Yeah, I think a student may have spilled some hydrochloric acid.” 

It wasn’t the only aroma on the air, but it was the most prominent. High school science classrooms almost always had a mix of septic notes, from all the chemicals and heavy cleaners, and a slight mustiness. There were just too many gadgets and supplies for everything to remain properly dusted. The moonlight illuminated the lab tables and stools, the posters of Newton’s Laws on the wall, the safety guidelines for chemistry labs affixed with peeling tape to the supply cabinet door, and the plastic-boned anatomy skeleton beside the teacher’s desk. The white board at the front of the classroom had been left over the break with a diagram depicting the cycle of photosynthesis in multiple marker colors, and the television on the wheeled cart was tucked in the corner. 

“This is crazy.” She hopped from the windowsill to the floor and landed nimbly. 

I grinned. “It’s _your_ fantasy.” 

Straightening her clothes, Bella cocked a brow at me. “You’re the one who suggested we go for a walk tonight and just so happened to lead us here.”

My hands paused while securing the window back into place. I wanted to look at her, but found I couldn’t bring myself to. Her observation was apt—I was the one pushing, the one who couldn’t stop thinking about the scenario. And, quite damningly, while Bella’s pleasure had arguably been the priority of our previous games, this one was all about me. Was I being selfish?

I released a heavy breath and turned toward her. “You’re right. This is too far. We should go.”

Bella snorted with laughter, shaking her head at me fondly. “Not a chance.” She bounded over to our old lab table and vaulted, heel of her hand braced against the formica surface, up so that she was sitting on it, facing my old seat. “I like how excited you are for this.” She crooked her finger, beckoning me. 

Automatically, my feet obeyed, and I found myself in the seat where I had spent some of the worst and best hours of my life—the precise place where I had met the person who would simultaneously be my monstrous nature’s greatest temptation and the love of my life. The person who, by the grace of God-knew-what, was right in front of me. 

“No need to look so glum.” Her voice was kind as her fingers slipped into my hair. 

I closed my eyes and shook my head slightly, trying to get out of my own head. 

“Is it really so bad?” Bella whispered, and I heard vulnerability there. “Letting me see what you want? How much you want it?” 

“Of course not,” I denied. I didn’t manage to convince her or myself. 

An awkward silence stretched between us. I wanted to end it, to reassure her, but I didn’t know how. Somehow we had blundered onto a subject I didn’t know how to discuss. I had never tried, and I couldn’t fathom how to do it right—how to be honest without hurting her feelings, without tainting her memories or experiences. Without sounding weak-willed and pathetic. I should have been anticipating this. It stood to reason that if we were going to be excavating Bella’s sexual psyche for our games, mine would come up at some point, and Bella had already hinted she was thinking about it. 

It was her voice that cut through the quiet. “I just…don’t understand. I thought it made sense before we got married, before you turned me. Why talk about what we couldn’t have yet? But nothing has changed. I know nothing about what you want, what you like, aside from what I have gathered from your reactions. You…. It seems like you are enjoying our sex life?” 

The way her voice went up at the end and made the statement a question broke my heart. “Yes,” I said immediately, earnestly. “Very much.” I could still see her doubt lingering, so I went further. “Over the years, I’ve heard the thoughts of so many humans and vampires, preoccupied constantly with sex. They provided me a fairly detailed picture, and the sheer number of perspectives gave that picture at lot of nuance and scope. I thought I understood physical love, what it was, how it must feel, even though I had no personal experience, but…that was arrogant. Of course, I had no idea. What I have with you, Bella, is something completely new in a world that I thought had run out of surprises for me. And it has always been _more_ —more than I expected, more than I deserved.” 

Bella was touched, convinced. She was also undeterred. “But you won’t let me in.” I opened my mouth, but she raised a hand in a plea to let her finish. “Don’t think I missed the way you reacted when I suggested we play some games for your fantasies, too. I know it’s hard. It’s scary. Believe me, I do. I don’t even know where I got the courage to start telling you what I wanted sexually, to keep doing it, especially because, in the beginning anyway, you rejected me over and over again.” 

She gave me a firm look at the protest she could see coming. “When I first asked you if it was possible for us to have sex, you said no. When I told you I wanted to be human when I lost my virginity, you first said no, and then said not yet. When we finally did have sex, you told me never again until I was changed. Trying to navigate through where we can compromise versus something that is a hard limit for you has always been difficult because you don’t differentiate between the two, not to mention it being an absolute minefield for my ego. All those times ‘no, it’s not possible’ turned out to just mean ‘I think it’s a bad idea’. Those conversations were always terrifying and often discouraging.” 

I could see the pain I had put her through in her large, expressive eyes. My head slumped forward and hung. “I’m sorry, Bella.” 

She cradled my face and raised my chin. She waited patiently until I met her gaze before she spoke. “Don’t be sorry. I didn’t say all that to make you feel guilty. I know you were scared of hurting me, and I know you never lied to me. That wasn’t the point. You were figuring things out as you went, just like I was. The point was that it was important we kept having the conversation, and I wanted you to know that I understand how it feels to be the one opening up and asking for something. I can’t promise you how I will react—I mean, I would say that, when it comes to you, I’m pretty much down for anything, but my brain isn’t so fogged up with lust that I don’t see the possibility of you wanting something I wouldn’t enjoy. If you are this reluctant to tell me, I mean, that’s a clue, right? But I can promise you we will keep talking about it until we figure out where we stand. You can trust me, Edward.” 

For a moment, I was too overcome to speak. She was…too good to me. It was a comfort, a significant one, that she was committed to approaching my desires the same way I was to hers. But then the dark cloud came over me again, because she was still nowhere near the heart of the issue. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?” Her tone was more curious than frustrated. 

I sighed, bracing myself. She was right—the conversation was necessary, for the sake of the intimacy we had been working tirelessly to build. I should have taken a moment to gather my thoughts, formulate the best way to present the information, instead I blurted, “I don’t have any fantasies. Not really in general, and definitely not about you specifically. I don’t think of you that way.” 

The look on her face was everything I had dreaded it would be. She was so shocked, so hurt. 

“You don’t fantasize about me.” It was a statement, not a question. She believed me, and so quickly it reminded me of the way she used to doubt her worth. She tried to withdraw her hands from me, but I caught them and covered them with mine. 

Well, now she knew the truth and I couldn’t take it back. But I could make it better than it was by explaining.

“Maybe that was poorly phrased,” I said gently. “It would be more accurate maybe to say that I _can’t_ think of you that way. That I would never allow myself to.” 

Her brows knit in a way that was so pitiable, so pained. “Why not?”

With a heart full of heavy disgust, I took her right hand and guided it with my left, back, behind her and down, under the lab table, until she was touching the splintered mess of the wooden strut I had destroyed. 

Some of her hurt was replaced with confusion. “Wow, that’s….”

“What I did the first time I met you.” 

Her gaze swung back to me sharply. 

“Gripping that strut until I turned it to pulp was the only anchor I had keeping me in my seat.” My throat felt tight, but I needed to keep going. She had to know that if there was a failing here, it was mine, not hers. “Bella, I don’t know how to make you understand how truly close it was that day.” 

I saw the moment her surprise began to transform into concern for me, and I shook my head, but she touched me anyway, pulled my head against her chest.

“I don’t think you _can_ understand,” I concluded bitterly. She stiffened but didn’t let go. I was glad I didn’t have to look her in the eye for this. “Not just because you haven’t met a human whose blood ‘sings’ for you, but you also just seem to have an easier time than most managing your thirst. You were able to be around humans mere days after your transformation, for crying out loud.”

“Not humans,” she cut in. “Just Charlie. And that’s different. You and I both know the thirst is easier to manage when it’s someone you love.” 

I supposed she would say the same about our half-human daughter, about Jacob and Seth. The scent of their blood wasn’t fully human, but they still smelled…edible. Marginally more appetizing than an animal, at least. She hadn’t struggled with any of them. I didn’t see the point of bringing up the hiker she had scented but not hunted—it was clear that Bella’s discomfort in being singled out was blinding her. 

Instead, I continued diplomatically. “I can’t hear your thoughts, so I don’t know for certain, but I can hear other people’s and I know it is different for everyone. How they describe their thirst, what sets it off, how acutely they feel it. I learned the hard way that visualizing a kill was a dangerous thing for me to do.”

Somehow I had slid down until my head was in her lap, my cheek against her thigh. I wrapped my arms under her knees, clutching her legs to my chest. My shame was palpable in the air. “Visualizing led to me rebelling and leaving Carlisle in the first place. It was why I struggled so much to return, and why my adjustment back to my old diet was so difficult. First would come the spike of hunger, then the fantasy. The fantasy would take hold, and the next thing I knew, I would be rationalizing, creating an exception. And then I would have to go home to Carlisle and Esme with red eyes.”

Her hand came to rest on my head. As always, her touch was loving, forgiving. 

“We all have our own strategies for keeping to our diet. Rosalie calls my methods repression, and strictly speaking, she’s right. But it’s what works for me. I am very careful about whether and when I allow myself to imagine the act of drinking someone.” Should I continue? Surely, I shouldn’t. But my mouth kept moving, my eyes fixed on a chart of endangered species classifications across the room. Her hand was stroking my hair. “With you, it was obviously out of the question. That first day, sitting in this very seat, I let myself plan how I might do it—how I would get you alone, how I would deal with witnesses, but I knew better than to picture myself actually drinking you. There would have been no turning back if I had.” I almost stopped there, but went on to confess. “I only let myself do it once—that first day in the meadow, after I had calmed down and was almost certain it was safe. I leaned my face into your neck and thought it through, in detail. How I would do it, what it would taste like, how it would feel. But I wasn’t really tempted. Like you said, it’s easier when it’s someone you love.” We were in agreement on that at least. 

“But I didn’t get cocky. I never thought about it again, not with that kind of detail. I don’t want those visuals in my head in any kind of concrete way. So, that’s how it works for me: my body tells me it wants something—to rip your throat open and drink your blood, to touch your cheek, to kiss your shoulder—I think it, an image pops into my head, and I push it aside. I have to stop before it becomes solid, something I can revisit and obsess over. The urge is just a moment that comes and goes; I don’t follow it.” 

Her hand stilled. Silence fell over the classroom again. There was more, but I knew I couldn’t stomach volunteering the information; she would have to ask. And she would ask, I was certain of it.

“Edward?” she said finally. 

“Yes?” 

“There’s still something I’m not clear on.” 

I resigned myself. “Okay.” I lifted my head and looked up at her. Her skin was glowing in the moonlight. 

“I understand not fantasizing about drinking my blood. That makes complete sense to me, and incidentally, I appreciate that you didn’t spend a lot of time visualizing killing me.” She gave me a hesitant, crooked smile that I couldn’t bring myself to return. “But why do the same with thoughts about touching and kissing me? I understand being close to me like that could trigger the thirst, especially early on, but after you loved me?” 

There it was. “You are assuming bloodlust and carnal lust are always distinct and separate for me.” I drew in a weighty breath. “That’s not the case,” I admitted. “At least, not to a point where I trusted myself. And not just with you—with most of the human women I have found attractive over the years, as well. It has always been safer just to keep all physical desires on lockdown.” 

Her mouth formed a soft O, registering her shock. “I thought you said you never really…before me…?”

Was _that_ what she was taking away from this? “I hadn’t, not really. I actually thought for many years that I wasn’t capable of feeling sexual desire in the way most people seem to; I lived celibate for a long time with barely any discomfort or unhappiness. Until I met you. I wasn’t exaggerating when I told you I think I needed to fall in love for my sexuality to fully wake up. But there were moments here and there, women I got to know briefly who were appealing to me in that confusing way of jumbled physical responses. Maybe three or four in ninety-odd years. Nothing ever came of that, obviously, and in terms of intensity, there is no comparison to you at all.” 

“And urges to take me for my blood and take me for your pleasure were mixed together for you?” 

The actual, salient point of what I had told her. “Not always, but often enough.” Kissing Bella had a way of lowering my defenses until the thirst charged in. The sweet scent of her blood was as likely to make me want to kiss her neck as bite it. My mouth filling with venom for her would regularly trigger an erection, or vice versa. It had been a nightmare. “It did get better the longer we were together, and naturally I don’t feel that way when we are intimate now.” 

Words could not describe my relief at no longer having to hear her heartbeat or smell the sweetness of what it was pumping through her veins during sex. I didn’t have to dread that the memory of how her blood tasted would flash through my mind right before I came. I could finally put that disgusting part of myself to rest for good.

I was pleased to see some traces of revulsion in Bella’s eyes, but there wasn’t nearly enough, and there was something else there that was far more prevalent. It…couldn’t be fascination? I had to be reading her wrong. I _hoped_ I was reading her wrong. 

“So,” she summarized, “you don’t have fantasies about me.” She was actually taking this pretty well, much better than I thought she would. I had worried this would hit a part of her self-esteem that was particularly vulnerable, but I shouldn’t have underestimated Bella’s endless ability to take in creepy, horrible, run-for-the-hills information about me like it was nothing. 

“None,” I agreed. And thank God. There was absolutely nothing about my sexuality prior to her transformation that I wanted to carry forward into our marriage.

She tucked one side of her long dark hair behind her ear. “Not even now? New ones—since I changed?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure that’s a switch I know how to flip.” 

“But you are open to mine?”

I kissed the palm of her hand. “Very. If you couldn’t tell, your fantasies have been quite the vicarious experience for me.” 

She studied me for a long minute, biting her lip. Something was troubling her. “Will you promise me something, Edward?”

“What?” 

“That you’ll tell me if there is something you want. Anything. Nothing is off limits until we talk about it, okay?”

I nodded. 

“And that you’ll tell me if there’s something you don’t want to do. You won’t just go along with it to make me happy.”

“I promise,” I agreed. 

“Our safe word is fern,” she reminded me. 

I chuckled. “I’m aware. But I haven’t needed it.” 

She glanced down, fidgeting on her perch in front of me. “You know you can also use it if I am ever…too much, right?” 

“Too much?”

Bella winced. “Like last Saturday, maybe. When you were trying to finish that book and I just kept coming back for more, over and over again.”

Her meaning dawned on me. “Is that what you are worried about?”

She shrugged and it was fretful, tense thing. “You just said that you went a century without sex and you didn’t even really mind. I just…I can’t even imagine. That sounds like a hellscape to me.” 

I burst out laughing. She tried to pull away at the same time I tried to pull her close, and her head wound up on my shoulder. 

“It’s not funny,” she spoke into my neck. “If sex is something you could take or leave and I’m basically a demon in heat, that’s a problem. I was so worried before I turned that I was going to lose the way I desired you, that you were going to come second to blood, and sex would be an afterthought.” She sat up, a sour cast to her bottom lip. “But, nope. Not even close. Do you remember telling me how vampire personalities more or less become locked in versions of their human selves at the time they were changed? Their likes and dislikes, their temperaments? And some of it becomes heightened?”

“Yeah.”

She was in a full ramble now. “Well, Carlisle thinks I’ve had such an easy transition because of how much time I had to prepare, but what if that’s not it? What if I was just _so focused_ on how much I wanted to still want you and how much I didn’t want to want blood that it… _stuck_. And now, I’m just like this, forever.” 

I was pretty sure it didn’t really work like that, but I didn’t see how dismissing her anxieties as baseless could possibly be helpful. She was genuinely concerned, and I could see that it wasn’t actually the idea that she might be a freak that was the problem, more that she worried what it meant for us as a couple. 

I tried again to tug her toward me, and this time she allowed it. I pulled her down off the table and into my lap and kissed her adorably furrowed brow. “Bella, if you are like this forever, then I would say that we are going to have a very happy marriage.” 

She scowled at me. “I would take more confidence in that if you weren’t still laughing.” But before I could speak, she had begun again, asking me about my conclusion. “You really don’t think it will be a problem if my sex drive is so much higher than yours? Too high?”

 _Higher than mine_ and _too high_ were two different things. Was hers higher than mine? It seemed likely given the evidence, but not at all by the gap she was imagining. Was it too high? I didn’t think so. Sure, sometimes she wanted more, and more often, than I was expecting, but usually all it took was knowing she was turned on to wake my body up. 

“Bella, my sex drive after meeting you doesn’t even compare to how I was before. Trust me, I can keep up. I have been, haven’t I?” To emphasize my point, I pulled her closer so that there was no way she could miss how aroused I had become. 

I watched her eyes widen, then darken. It was such an appealing sight that I had to kiss her. Her arms circled my neck with a sigh and I felt her squirm closer. My sweet Bella. How could she possibly think that there was such a thing as too much of this?

Seated sideways as she was, one of her breasts was pressed fully against my chest, while the other was not _quite_ there. It called to my hand. I had meant my caress for the top of her clothes, to start slow, but when my fingers snagged on the hem of her long-sleeved dusky-blue henley on their way up from her thigh, I adapted, sliding my hand under instead. The smooth skin of her abdomen trembled under my touch. The fabric of her bra felt lacy and so thin it was probably translucent—I could feel every minute detail of her hard nipple through it. I groaned, my hand clenching involuntarily. 

Her mouth broke from mine and her whimper echoed in the empty classroom. 

And just like that, I felt a distinct and urgent need to strip her naked and take her on this lab table. 

I had the button on her jeans undone and her zipper down before her hand covered mine, stilling my movement. 

“Edward, the fantasy,” she reminded me, her chin against my shoulder. 

It took a moment for my lust-clouded brain to register the words. The specific scenario that had brought us here tonight came flooding back. Shame swept through me as, once again, I felt so selfish. I had dragged her here, and it was a such a one-sided game. 

“We don’t have to—” I began. 

But Bella’s hand pushed against my chest, parting us far enough that we could see each other’s faces. “Oh yes, we do.” Her jaw was set, determined. “You have been thinking about this non-stop since I showed it to you, I can tell. _You want this_. And as we just discussed, you never ask me for anything in the bedroom. Let me do this for you.” 

I could see there was no talking her out of it at this point. What she said was true, I just…. 

I tried a different tactic. “Well, maybe we don’t have to follow the fantasy exactly. We could change up some of the details.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow at me, rightly suspecting that I was still trying to get out of it, and pushed my hand away from the fastenings of her jeans. She yanked the zipper back up with an expression of _what were you thinking?_ I had completely gone off script with that move. 

I hunched my shoulders defensively. “I wanted you naked.” 

Bella rolled her eyes, but then she froze, the most peculiar emotions passing over her face. She was studying me with such scrutiny that, for a moment, I was sure I was in trouble. But when she finally spoke, her voice was shaky. “Oh. Okay.” 

I didn’t think that was desire I was hearing. It sounded more like…nerves. Was she nervous? What was happening?

She swallowed and swung her legs so that her ankle boots touched the ground. “So,” she announced, “it’s spring of our junior year. You and I have just started seeing each other. I know you’re a vampire, but we haven’t been to the meadow yet, and Mr. Banner is showing a movie in class.” 

Bella let go of me and stood. Her voice still had that wobble, but if I had to describe her face, I would say she looked sure, fierce even. She walked to the corner where the television was. 

“We don’t have to go that far,” I said. I wasn’t particularly interested in fooling around to _Lorenzo’s Oil_ , regardless of whether it was true to the actual memory or not. 

She crouched over the dusty DVD player, examining the disk already inside. “I’m not going to wheel it out in front of the desks, and I don’t care what we put on.” The TV blinked on and the disk whirred in its tray. Bella pressed the play button on a documentary about the solar system. She smiled at me over her shoulder. “I’m just going for a bit of ambiance. It’s not like I paid attention to whatever he put on the first time around.” She was walking back to me now as production logos and title cards flashed across the screen. “All I could think about was the two of us, sitting side by side in the dark, and how badly I wanted to touch you.” 

My erection tightened painfully. “You were thinking about this? In class?” I asked, referring to what we were about to reenact. 

She reached the stool beside mine but didn’t sit in it. The button on her jeans was still undone, and I couldn’t look away. The film’s narrator began his introduction. “No. During class all I could muster was wishing my shoulder might brush against yours, or that you would hold my hand under the desk. But it felt intimate—we were so close, and the dark made it feel more private than it was. That whole side of my body tingled, dying for you to lean close. Both days, when I changed for gym afterward, my underwear was wet.” 

There was no unsteadiness in her voice now. God, she was sexy. 

“This fantasy came later, over months of masturbating in the shower, knowing that when I got out, you would be waiting in my bedroom. I wanted to touch your body so badly, and this scenario was my outlet.” 

Now I was the one shaking. Which was crazy, because my stomach was so tight with anticipation, I could barely move. 

Bella skittishly fingered the zip of her jeans. “Do you want to take my clothes off? Or do you want me to?” 

At first, I thought I couldn’t have heard her correctly. Then, once I processed that she had really said what I thought she said, I felt like the stool had been yanked out from under me. 

“Edward?” 

“Your clothes off?” I managed, my voice sounding strange in my own ears. 

“You wanted me naked.” She said it like she was reminding me, and her shyness was back. We had tread well outside her comfort zone, I knew that for certain, but she still had the steely determination about her. 

I goggled at her, frozen. 

Bella took pity on us both and stopped waiting for an answer. She lifted her henley over her head in one smooth motion and dropped it to the ground. Her bra was everything I had suspected it was: delicate crème-colored lace with the pink of her nipples starkly visible. Each leg lifted, followed by the sound of a boot falling to the tile floor. She pushed her zipper back down, and I watched, not breathing, as she peeled her jeans down her legs and stepped out of them. Her underwear matched the bra and was every bit as see-through. The moonlight shown directly onto her skin through the windows, making her shimmer and glow. The narrator of the documentary was concluding his introduction by extolling the beauty and majesty of Saturn’s rings and Jupiter’s storms as Bella’s bra and underwear dropped to the pile. 

Here I was, back in Mr. Banner’s classroom, in my old seat, so overwhelmed by Bella that I could not breathe, desperate because I had no idea how I was going to get through the next hour. The same all over again, and yet completely new. Whatever Bella could read of my reaction, she seemed to like it. She pushed her stool close to mine and sat, facing the front. 

“Bella,” I choked.

“Shh.” She bent toward me and whispered, “Don’t disrupt the class.” She smiled wickedly. “We’re supposed to watch the video.” 

I moaned and leaned in to kiss her, but she eluded me. 

“Behave,” she scolded. “Play the game.” 

She was right; I had to pull myself together. Somehow. Or we’d never get through this. But she was so beautiful and so naked, and right next to me. And if we played the game…I couldn’t touch her. This game was about her touching me. 

Bella placed her left hand on the lab table and looked at me significantly. 

I groaned and obeyed, placing my right hand beside hers, settling in for my torture. 

The narrator of the documentary had finished summarizing the formation of the universe at large and was now beginning the deep-dive into the formation of our sun. One minute passed. Then two, three. And still Bella did not move. She wasn’t even looking at me, her eyes fixed dutifully on the screen in the corner. I copied her, doing my level best not to look at her in all her loveliness. If she was trying to build the anticipation, to remind me of the hell that sluggish eking of time those two days in Biology had been, it was working. I had thought then that those minutes were slow; they had nothing on these minutes now. 

Finally, at six minutes, twenty-three seconds, the pinkie of Bella’s hand lifted and reached toward my hand. The feather-light brush of her skin against mine sent ripples through every sensory nerve on the back of my hand, spiraling pleasure from that one focal point. She caressed, growing bolder. At seven minutes, four seconds she began incorporating her other fingers, and forty-two seconds after that, she placed her hand over mine. At ten minutes, eighteen seconds she turned my hand over and traced my palm with such a deliberate, sensual touch it climbed up my arm and made my whole body shudder. Her touch traveled up the inside of my arm, lovingly stroking every inch while the narrator droned on about the scorching temperatures of Mercury…until it discretely dropped to my thigh. 

I tried to bite back the noise my throat made, but was unsuccessful. Bella looked at me sharply. “Quiet,” she mouthed, but I could see how much she was enjoying this. 

She conducted the same slow exploration on my thigh as she had my hand and arm. My teeth grit against the urge to growl, to speak, to beg. She was drawing this out every bit as much as she had in the thoughts she had shown me. I had believed, hoped, that she would be too impatient to draw it out so much when it came time, but I had underestimated her. At eighteen minutes, twelve seconds, she finally slid her touch down into to my inner thigh; three hundred eighty-two seconds later, she started moving higher. And at thirty minutes on the dot, she finally, _finally_ cupped me, fully hard and twitching with desperation. My hips jerked and my grunt was inhuman. 

“Careful,” Bella chided, her breath on my ear. “This classroom is full of people. We can’t get caught.” 

She reoriented her hand so that the heel was pressed into me, and then she rubbed. She stroked, up and down—all the way to the tip, all the way to the balls. Slowly, deliberately, and with firm pressure. It was all I could do to stay quiet, to keep from flailing in my seat. I closed my eyes, and tried to hold on. I couldn’t look at her, but I knew she was there, the sight of her naked at this lab table was burned into my mind and would follow me forever.

Within minutes, I gasped, “Bella, I’m….”

But she knew, and she stopped me from coming with a well-placed squeeze. She let me cool down. And then she began again. And again. After the second time, she lowered my zipper and released my erection through the opening, making a show of furtively looking around to check that we hadn’t been caught. She brought me to the brink over and over, but never let me finish. The near-peaks were getting closer and closer, the pleasure becoming so sharp it was agony. I was lost, a mess, completely out of control, when my head rolled back and my hand clutched at the table leg for support. 

“Don’t break it, Edward!” The alarm in her voice was real this time. 

I finally allowed myself to look at her fully. “Let me touch you,” I rasped, eyes on her breasts and the way they moved, jiggled as she fondled me. 

“Not yet.” 

“Bella!” I growled, my voice dangerously low. 

She let go of me, and held up seven fingers. She dropped each in a countdown, even saying the last few out loud. “Three…two…one.” Elation was evident on every inch of her face. “Hour’s up. Class is over.” 

She leapt up and used her full speed to run and shut the DVD player and television off. I pursued her, the sight of her naked bottom in the air too tempting to ignore. My hands were all over her as she straightened up, and I was kissing her face, her neck, her shoulders. Her startled cry became a giggle, but I wasn’t playing anymore. 

“Walk me to my next class, Edward.” 

I followed her out the classroom door into the pitch-dark hall only because I knew where she was leading me and what she would do to me there. I wasn’t following the rules anymore. I wasn’t going to say my lines or pretend we weren’t absolutely alone. I was groping every inch of her I could reach, my touch feverish and demanding, my mouth gnawing on the nape of her neck. When it became apparent that she couldn’t walk properly anymore, whether because I was hindering her or because I had pushed her own arousal too far, I lifted her against me and walked us both to the supply closet. Her ankles locked around my waist and her arms around my neck, my naked erection bobbing against her dripping wet undercarriage as we walked, her bare body flush against my clothed one. 

“God, Edward,” she gasped, clutching me. 

Maybe the door to the supply closet was locked and maybe it wasn’t; I yanked it open with too much force for it matter either way. 

Once inside, Bella leaned back to look at me. Her whole body was trembling, but there were no nerves this time. It was all lust, just lust. She knew what I wanted, what she had promised me with her fantasy. I loosened my grip on her waist and she slid down my body, dragging her skin along the tip of my over-stimulated cock, down onto her knees. 

I had never had an erection so painful in my life. At this point, it was so swollen, so tender, so ready for release. And yet, she didn’t take me into her mouth right away. Instead, she locked eye contact and pressed a kiss against the head that was so tender, so affectionate, it took my breath away. She nuzzled her face against the shaft, and used one of her delicate hands to adjust the angle to meet her open lips. I braced against the concrete wall behind me at the feel of her breath on my sensitive skin. When her mouth slid over me at last, took me inside, I may have left my body for moment. 

I was supposed to let her dictate the pace, let her tease me, kiss me, stroke me, swallow me as she pleased—but I didn’t. I _couldn’t_. My self-control had frayed to nothingness. Before I consciously registered what I had done, I plunged deeper into her wet mouth. Not gently. I caressed her face in apology, but then I pulled back and did it again. And a third time. My ears heard the noises I was making in the dark room, but my brain was too overloaded to process them.

She had performed oral sex on me a few times before—but not like this. I had never lost control, behaved like a feral animal, used her mouth for my pleasure. At least I restrained myself from holding her head, pulling her hair. But, honestly, I didn’t need to. She held steady, didn’t flinch or pull back, let me take whatever I needed. 

After all of her edging, I was on a hair-trigger, and very soon I was coming. The release came over me in wave after wave of sharp, biting pleasure that wracked my whole body, radiated from my center and spread to the tips of my fingers and toes, to my scalp. It continued, and continued, until the acuity of the ecstasy became too much to bear and I jerked myself out of her mouth, panting and moaning. 

When I came finally came back to myself, Bella had risen to her feet and was holding me, her head tucked under my chin, hand stroking the side of my face. As sanity returned, so did my capacity for horror. 

Bella was ahead of me. “Don’t apologize.”

My mouth opened and started to form incoherent vowel sounds. I wasn’t even sure what I was trying to say. 

“No,” she said, moving her fingers to cover my lips. “Don’t apologize. That was everything we both wanted.” 

But that wasn’t true, and it gave me something concrete to focus on. I pulled her fingers out of the way and managed some words. “But your fantasy.” 

“My fantasy was to touch you until I drove you crazy. Behold, my success.” She tilted her head back and smiled up at me. “Don’t think for a second that I am missing the dialogue where I had to talk you in here with me instead of going to our next classes. This was so much better.” 

I was unconvinced. 

She pressed a sweet kiss against my mouth. “It’s not every day that Edward Cullen loses control. This is a memory I will cherish forever.” 

Bella was pleased, there was no mistaking that. But I didn’t think I felt the same this time. This game didn’t feel as harmless as the others in the aftermath. What were we poking awake inside of me? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reading _Midnight Sun_ and listening to the way Edward described and experienced his sexuality, I thought he sounded pretty demisexual. He never used the word, and hell, maybe I’m over-thinking this and he’s just a middle-aged LDS woman’s idea of a perfect Mormon boy waiting patiently for the right girl. You could also accuse me of bias, given that I am a demi myself, but sue me—I decided to run with it for this story. 
> 
> To clarify, for those unfamiliar with demisexuality, bloodlust getting cross-contaminated with lust-lust isn’t part of it—that’s just some weird vampire shit Edward developed by repressing every “bad thought” he’s had for a hundred years. I hope you all are on board for things to get a bit angsty for a few chapters. I promise to end on a fluffy note, but Edward has some issues to work through and no therapist, so…. 
> 
> I want to thank everyone who has been supporting the story. Receiving your kudos and reading your comments is the best part of my morning. Y’all are the best 😉


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